The Victorian Society
1 Priory Gardens (1880), Bedford Park, London, by E.J. May (1853–1941), the headquarters of the Victorian Society.
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| Formation | 1958 |
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| Headquarters | 1 Priory Gardens, London, England |
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Key People
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HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG, GCVO (Patron) Lord Briggs of Lewes (President) Sir David Cannadine FBA FRSL FRHistS, Harry Handelsman, Lord Howarth of Newport CBE PC, Sir Simon Jenkins FRSL, Griff Rhys Jones, Fiona MacCarthy OBE FRSL, (Vice-Presidents) Christopher Costelloe (Director) Professor Hilary Grainger (Chair of Trustees) |
| Website | victoriansociety |
The Victorian Society, based in London, England, is a national charity, founded in 1957, which campaigns to preserve the best Victorian and Edwardian architecture, built between 1837 and 1914, in England and Wales. As one of the National Amenity Societies, the Victorian Society is a statutory consultee on alterations to listed buildings, and by law must be notified of any work to a listed building which involves any element of demolition.
The society is a membership organisation which relies on the public joining to support its charitable work.
The Society runs an annual list of the Top Ten Most Endangered Victorian or Edwardian Buildings in England and Wales and has active Facebook and Twitter accounts.
The Twentieth Century Society undertakes a similar protective role for post-1914 buildings and the Georgian Group for those built between 1700 and 1840.
The founding of the Society was proposed in November 1957 with the intention of countering the widely prevalent antipathy to 19th and early 20th century architecture. From the 1890s into the twentieth century, Victorian art had been under attack, critics writing of "the nineteenth century architectural tragedy", ridiculing "the uncompromising ugliness" of the era's buildings and attacking the "sadistic hatred of beauty" of its architects. The commonly-held view had been expressed by P.G.Wodehouse in his 1933 novel, Summer Moonshine; "Whatever may be said in favour of the Victorians, it is pretty generally admitted that few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks."
The first meeting was held at Linley Sambourne House on 28 February 1958. Among its thirty founder members were John Betjeman, Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Nikolaus Pevsner, who became Chairman in 1964. Former Bletchley Park codebreaker, Jane Fawcett, managed the society's affairs as secretary from 1964 to 1976.
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